Irish writer Paul Lynch won the Booker Prize for fiction on Sunday with what judges called a “soul-shattering” novel about a woman’s struggle to protect her family as Ireland collapses into totalitarianism and war. “Prophet Song,” set in a dystopian fictional version of Dublin, was awarded the 50,000-pound ($63,000) literary prize at a ceremony in London. His book beat five other finalists from Ireland, the U.K., the U.S. and Canada, chosen from 163 novels submitted by publishers. Lynch has called “Prophet Song,” his fifth novel, an attempt at “radical empathy” that tries to plunge readers into the experience of living in a collapsing society. Founded in 1969, the Booker Prize is open to English-language novels from any country published in the U.K. and Ireland.

Source: The Herald November 26, 2023 12:47 UTC